crashed
by Esoteric24
Summary: Crossover AU told in song-themed drabble-ish things. Edryn's tale. And yes, that was not a typo. Rated T mainly for Ed's mouth.
1. part the first

**Author's Note: I suppose this deserves some explanation. In my mind, there are two types of crossovers: the type where characters from one universe literally cross over through magic or science or what-have-you (in FMA's case, it's typically something to do with the Gate) into another and interact with characters there, and the type which is a sort of AU where characters from one universe are made to have been in another all along.**

**This is one of the latter, as that's almost always the way I imagine crossovers, and is set in the FMA-verse. This means that you need absolutely no prior knowledge of Leviathan or its characters, since you can basically treat their AU'd selves as OCs of a sort. It also means that if you've only read Leviathan, then you're not going to get an awful lot out of this. However, the series _are _rather similar: both set in 1914, both steampunk of a sort, both with fifteen-year-old protagonists, both with soldiers, and both with AUs formed from fantastical science (for FMA, matter-manipulating alchemy, and for Leviathan, genetic engineering and legged vehicles).**

**As you can see, they're obviously very crossable-overable! :D Well, actually, they _are _pretty darn close to each other, and I love them both to death, so here we are. 'Round about the middle of the manga (this fic is manga/_Brotherhood_-verse, by the way), I had a sudden revelation: Ed and Deryn, as very empowered characters and possibly my favorite protagonists of all time, would make a simply fabulous 1) friendship pairing and 2) just regular pairing! :D**

**Don't get me wrong, I love Dalek _and _EdWin and wouldn't wish anything besides happily-ever-afters on either. But this idea was just insane yet plausible enough to be intriguing, and I still maintain that it's about a thousand times more likely than _some _of the ships floating around out there.**

**So here we are: the complete Edryn story, told in drabble-y, song-named thingies. (Try not to judge my extremely mainstream song choices, although I can't help but recommend all of them.) It starts somewhere during Chapter 19 of the manga (Episode 12 of _Brotherhood_), where the Elrics are leaving Rush Valley for the first time, and goes for quite a ways through the plot. (For Leviathan, it can be assumed that the characters are in a FMA-AU'd version of post-_Goliath _events.) It is character-based, however, so some of the plot points may be skimmed over/mentioned only in passing for the sake of length/relevance to Edryn.**

**A note to those of you who have read my Leviathan stuff before: you know by now that I'm not the type of person to curse gratuitously, but this is _Ed _we're talking about. He narrates most of these drabbles, and for those of you who are unaware, he curses as much as Deryn does, except normally and not with words Scott made up. Be warned. Deryn, of course, is just as charmingly fake-Scottish as ever...**

**DISCLAIMER: Not that this thing should be any longer than it already is, but I gotta say it: I'm not Scott Westerfeld or Arakawa Hiromu, and I don't own any of this. The songs and lyrics are all copyright the artists in parentheses.**

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><p>.<p>

.

.

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><p><strong>i. crashed<strong>

.

_and I crashed into you_

_and I went up in flames_  
><em>(Daughtry)<em>

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><p>.<p>

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Edward Elric has met a lot of people for someone who's—almost—sixteen. It's an occupational hazard of working for the military, albeit one of the more pleasant ones. He'd much prefer an endless parade of lieutenants and warrant officers and majors and whatever the hell else the military has to offer—he's never been a stickler for protocol; if they aren't going to call _him_ "Major", then why should he bother with _their_ pointless formalities?—to being blown to bloody bits.

In all those meetings, though, he's never actually _run into_ someone. Happened across them by chance, sure, but not _literally_—he's always thought it was a stupid expression, actually, one of the asinine things that old ladies said: "Oh, I've just run into my old friend at the store!" (Yeah, sure. If you actually _ran into_ anything substantial, you'd probably break every bone in your rickety old body.)

.

.

.

He finds himself reconsidering this rather abruptly one day in East City, when he—quite by accident—slams smack into someone. More accurately, his _face_ slams smack into someone—someone's shoulderblades, which are unfortunately rather bony. He manages to stop the rest of himself in time.

Rubbing his nose, he retreats in annoyance, mumbling something that will probably stand for an apology—he's late, _again_, and Colonel Bastard has developed a habit of exponentially _increasing_ his snide remarks for every minute of his "important time" (hah! He spends it all talking on the telephone with girls and avoiding doing paperwork, Ed knows,) that Ed takes up.

The someone is apparently not willing to stand for this, however, and flings out an arm that is, as it happens, the _exact_ height of Ed's windpipe. He stumbles back, choking, and looks up—why is everyone _so damn tall_?—for the first time at his assailant.

Who is, indeed, depressingly tall, and sports short blond hair—a shade or two paler than Ed's, more, in this light, a silver than a gold—and a bulky leather coat. His frame, under it, looks skinny to the point of frailty, but the boots planted firmly on the asphalt of the side street are those of someone more than willing to kick various sturdy objects. He looks concerned for a moment, then realizes Ed isn't mortally wounded—his thin features (handsome, but why is Ed noticing this?) morph into an expression of more-than-slight annoyance.

"_Excuse me_?" he snaps, in a higher voice than his height would indicate, and Ed revises his age estimate down a few years—this boy can't be older than him or Al. "Just rush off and leave me, that's right, without even apologizing!" An accent that Ed can't quite place lilts in his voice.

He's about to snarl up into the other boy's face and hurry along—the bastard should be glad Ed didn't just curse at him and leave in the first place—but Al's warning "_Brother_—" from behind him stops him dead in his tracks.

"_Sorry_," he grinds out, not bothering to smooth his scowl; Alphonse's sigh from behind him causes him to tack on, hastily, "for running into you. I—wasn't—looking where I was going."

"_Obviously_." The other boy scowls back and folds his arms, but the expression lasts only a second until it melts into something more—playful. He sketches a bow. "May I have the honor of knowing whose head has left a bloody _bruise_ on my back?"

"Edward," Ed says, not exactly sure why he's bothering—something in those blue eyes, maybe—and, gesturing behind himself, adds, "and Alphonse Elric."

The boy's eyes widen briefly—his mouth twitches—and suddenly he is laughing hard, bent almost double.

Ed doesn't know how to deal with this suddenly crazy stranger. Neither does Al, apparently, because he comes up next to his brother and says, tentatively, "Um... are you... all right?"

The boy swipes at his streaming eyes with the back of his hand and manages, "Aye... it's just... _you're_ the Fullmetal Alchemist?" He points at Ed with a slightly shaking hand.

"Yes..." Ed isn't sure if he should be flattered that a total stranger recognized him by his name alone, or if he should punch said stranger for _laughing at him_.

"But you're so—" he gasps, laughing again, and makes a hand gesture at chest level.

Ed needs no more provocation; he has the boy by the collar before he can get _that damn word_ out. "_Who are you calling—_!" He's grabbed with his automail hand, however, rather harder than he meant to, and the coat's only buttoned button rips right off. The coat slides off the boy's shoulders.

A truly excellent punch slams into Ed's jaw, and an indignant "_Oi_!" sounds in his ears, but he's too busy staring at what the coat has uncovered to more that halfway notice either. Regaining his presence of mind, he manages to let go of what remains of the collar and back up several steps.

"_You're a_—" he starts, then swallows.

"I'm a what?" A blond eyebrow arches.

"You're a _girl_?"

.

.

.

It comes out rather harsher than he intended, more accusatory than anything, and suddenly her pale eyebrows are crumpled down and her jaw is set in a way that's familiar, somehow—

"_Of course I am, you sodding idiot, what did you _think_? It's not like I'm barking _disguised_ as a boy_!" she explodes, and although her voice is several octaves higher than his own, Ed suddenly recognizes the way _he_ sounds when someone's got him pissed. He takes another generous step back.

"Ah—no—p-please forgive us, miss. It's just—with your hair—and that coat—I d-don't think we were sure." Al's voice is apprehensive and timid—he's used to stepping lightly around people with hair-trigger tempers—and he sounds about six.

The girl blinks at him, apparently reconciling the voice with the seven-foot-tall suit of armor, momentarily forgetting to be angry. "I'm not mad at _you_," she says, her voice considerably softer. Then it skyrockets in pitch and volume again. "I'm mad at _him_!" She jabs an accusing finger at Ed. "_He_ insulted me!"

Ed gapes at her. "_Insulted_ you? You bi—" Her expression is positively murderous, however, so he backpedals hastily. He's not afraid of muscular, adult men out to kill him, no—but he's been hit with a wrench enough times to know to respect the rages of teenage girls. "Uh, well, your hair... and the coat..." he says lamely, aware that it isn't much of an excuse. He's met women with hair that short before—and, besides, he's looking at what the coat hid right now—well, trying _not_ to, dammit, but he's having a hard time of it—and he can't really imagine that it must've been doing a very good job. "I suppose I just wasn't paying attention," he adds, softer, which is true. Well, tru_er_

He's guessed right in using the softer tone. The anger goes right out of her face, replaced by something like amusement, and she laughs once. "This is what you get for wearing Alek's massive coats, you daftie," she says, presumably to herself, then sticks her hand out at Ed. "Apology, such as it is, accepted. Deryn Sharp... the Wind Alchemist... at your service."

For the second time in as many minutes, Ed is shocked right of his wits. He nearly gapes again, but manages to take her hand and ask, "You're a... State Alchemist? But you're not... in uniform..." Her clothes are neat and plain—loose black pants tucked into the tall boots and a white, long-sleeved collared shirt, the sleeves cuffed all the way down but several buttons undone—but indeed not military issues.

Deryn—the name suits her, even if it sounds suspiciously boyish to Ed—lifts an amused eyebrow. "Aye. But neither are _you_," she points out, then withdraws a silver watch that's intimately familiar to Ed—one just like it rests in his own pocket, after all. "Go on. Check my credentials."

Ed takes it in a daze, flipping it over. Deryn has turned to greet Al, so he has a few seconds to examine it in peace—and he can't deny that the design on the front is entirely genuine. On the back is indeed etched "Wind Alchemist."

Suddenly she's beside him, plucking it out of his hand and grinning cheekily. "Aye, I'm not winding you up, I really _am_ an alchemist."

"Winding you up"? Where is she _from_? "You had better be, to make that claim," Ed says, smirking a bit, pulling back—_tactical retreat, troops!_—to cover his amazement. He'd thought he was the youngest State Alchemist _by far_—but it's looking like Deryn may be close.

She just snorts and rolls her eyes, but then shuffles her feet and looks down. "But anyway—er. I... um... might've been due to report to Eastern Command bloody _ten_ minutes ago, and I might be just a wee bit lost. Sodding East City conductors," she adds under her breath in disgust. "So... since I assume you know the way...?"

"Of course we do," says Al graciously. He's always been the kinder of the two brothers; Ed often wonders at the contrast between his terrifying exterior and the boy who can't bear not to coddle stray cats—but that's the point, isn't it? If he was in his _real_ body—like he will be, one day, when Ed fulfills his promise—his face would be just as sweet as his temper. He scowls at the thought. Al cuts him a look, misinterpreting, then continues, "In fact, we're going there as well. And we're just as late as you are. Care to join us?"

Her smile is directed entirely at him, without a shade of uncertainty, an oddity—people find it hard to treat such an imposing appearance as the boy inside deserves, sometimes. "Aye, I think I would! Thanks loads."

"You weren't _that_ lost," Ed feels obliged to add. "This is a shortcut, actually."

But he's largely ignored as Deryn falls into step with Al, leaving no space for him on the narrow side street. He lengthens his stride—_damn tall people!_—and does his best to keep up.

.

.

.

By the time they've reached headquarters, Deryn and Al have run through all the standard pleasantries, but Ed hasn't learned anything more about her, besides the fact that she's fifteen and therefore almost exactly his age. Al keeps trying to rope him into the conversation, which Ed foils mainly by ducking his head and grunting. He _ran into_ this girl, yes, and she's a State Alchemist, but that doesn't mean he has to be nice to her—or let her learn anything more about him.

Deryn looks around with curiosity but no surprise as they enter headquarters—she's responding to the bustle of uniformed staff as if she's seen it all before, which Ed guesses she probably has. She's taking her time moving, though, so he asks, "Who are you reporting to?" in a not unkind tone.

"My orders say... someone called Colonel Mustang, the Flame Alchemist," she replies, crossing her arms and moving out of Ed's path. "D'you know him?"

Ed barks a laugh. "Do I _know_ him? All too well, the bastard. He's my commanding officer. Damn manipulative, too," he says, letting his irritation for Mustang show a little more than usual. He just _had_ to call Ed back to HQ on his way to visit Teacher... what was so damn important, anyway?

His comment—or possibly his profanity—earns him a smile and a laugh. "Brilliant! Then we can go in together, I reckon. Lead the way."

Ed does so, and his little brother catches up to him to say, in an undertone, "Brother—do you think that you being called back has anything to do with Deryn?"

"It's possible," he says, and leaves it at that until they reach Mustang's office.

He barges in first—shouting, naturally. "What kind of a trick are you trying to pull, Mustang? Calling me back here for no goddamn reason!" Behind him, he hears Deryn start to laugh quietly, and Al makes an uncertain noise, as if he wants to reprimand his older brother.

The Colonel barely looks up from what he's writing. "Rest assured, Fullmetal, that there _is_ a reason, much as I love to torture you." Riza Hawkeye, who is standing beside his desk on her perennial guard duty, _almost_ cracks a smile. "You would already _know_ this reason if you had shown up _on time_..." he continues, finally looking up and appearing to notice Deryn for the first time. His expression immediately changes to one of sunny charm. "Why, hello there, young lady! Is there anything I can do for you?" Even his _voice_ is vaguely flirtatious.

Effacing a smile, Deryn steps beside Ed and gives a crisply practiced salute; he has to fight the urge to tell her not to bother. "Major Deryn Sharp, the Wind Alchemist, reporting for duty, sir," she says, her voice level and professional—she's like a goddamn well-trained dog of the military already, Ed thinks gloomily.

If possible, which Ed doubts, Mustang's smile _grows_. "Ah, Miss Sharp, a pleasure to make your acquaintance," he says, standing and making his way over to shake her hand—a gesture that would be perfectly innocent if not for the other hand he positively _drapes_ on her shoulder. Deryn blushes slightly. "Forgive me. I knew that my new alchemist was arriving today, but not that she would be so young—or so beautiful," he adds slyly, causing the girl's fair skin to darken further.

"Thank you, sir," she says, and to her credit, her voice sounds reasonably composed.

Ed is all too familiar with his superior officer's legendary womanizing tendencies and decides to intervene before the military's anti-fraternization law can be _too_ blatantly broken—or so he tells himself. He doesn't really have a reason; Colonel Bastard _always_ pisses him off, and he's doing it even more today. "Mustang," he interrupts loudly, "I'm here too, you know."

The Flame Alchemist's charming smile is gone in an instant, replaced by a smirk. "Sorry, didn't see you there. You're a bit below my line of sight..."

"_Who are you calling so short that you could step right over him?!_" Ed screams, up in Mustang's face, honestly glad for the excuse to unleash his temper. The effort of being civil to Deryn has burnt through what little fuse he might have originally possessed—and, besides, this bastard had called him away from Rush Valley _just_ as he was about to visit Teacher. He better have a damn good reason for this.

Behind him, he hears Al's muffled groan. Mustang does not look fazed, however, and merely says, damn infuriating little smirk still in place, "_You_, Fullmetal." Before Ed can do anything, say anything, the colonel forges onward. "The faster we get this over with, the faster I can get back to work. You're being reassigned.

"I'm _what_? To where?" This is _not_ a good reason, in any sense of the phrase.

"Well..." Mustang pauses. "Not exactly. You see, Miss Sharp has just been transferred from Central Command to here, and she's on detached duty; she's living with the military. Now, I thought, and General Grumman agreed, that she would do us no good sitting around Headquarters twiddling her thumbs." He turns to Deryn, the smile again in evidence. "You are proficient in combat alchemy, correct?"

"Yes, sir," she says quietly, and Ed suddenly wonders: what the hell does she do? She's the "Wind Alchemist," yes, but he's never heard of anyone who could control _wind_, of all things. Maybe it's figurative, like his own, and has nothing to do with her ability?

Mustang twinkles at her. "Excellent, young lady, because I have no doubt you'll have plenty of chance to exercise it where _you're_ going." Deryn turns a barely perceptible shade paler, but Mustang doesn't seem to notice, addressing Ed in a considerably more businesslike tone. "I'm placing Miss Sharp with you, Fullmetal. She'll follow you wherever you go and return to Eastern if we need her. Technically, you're the same rank, but, as much as I hate to admit it, you probably have more experience than she does, and she is therefore your responsibility. _Don't screw it up_."

Ed and Deryn's incredulous "_What?_"s ring out at exactly the same time in exactly the same shocked tone of voice.

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><p><strong>ii. for the first time<strong>

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_sit talking up all night_

_sayin' things we haven't for a while, a while  
>(The Script)<em>

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><p>.<p>

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Deryn is quiet at first, perhaps a bit uncomfortable, but she grins to herself when she thinks no one is looking, and Edward knows that she's thrilled by this turn of events.

Him, not so much. He has _no idea_ what this girl can do, whether she's a liability or an asset in combat, whether those blue eyes have seen battle and those calloused, thin hands are those of a killer.

He hopes that she hasn't left her heart behind her, in the place which led to her becoming a State Alchemist.

Sometimes he wonders if he hasn't left his heart behind, either.

But they've nothing better to do on the long, long train ride to Dublith, once Ed has decided that he's going to see Teacher, damn it all, and she better not have a problem with it, and so Al asks where she's from.

Her face lights for a moment, transforming her into the girl that had yelled at Ed and made him apologize in the middle of the street, but then she draws her shell around herself again and lets only a single word escape: "Glaschu."

"And where's that?" Al prods gently.

Edward interrupts, from where he's curled staring out the window, "Is that where you got your weird-ass accent?"

Deryn bristles visibly, fingers curling into practiced fists, and says in a tight voice, "_Aye_. D'you have a problem with it?"

He isn't looking for a fight just yet with his new—_subordinate?_—and so Ed contents himself with an indolent, "No."

The girl glares for a moment more, then sits back and addresses Al again. "It's in the northeast, near the desert, but we get loads of rain, and snow in the winter. But I didn't come from there. Haven't been back for nearly six months, now."

She deftly turns the conversation to Resembool—"_Sheep?_" she says slowly when Al asks her if she knows it—and the Elrics hear no more of Glaschu, or wherever else she might have been. Gradually Al seems to open her up, and in a few hours she's talking animatedly about her brother, a second lieutenant and relatively unskilled alchemist at Northern Command, and for a while she tells lively, recycled stories about the apparently obligatory Drachman assaults. Briggs Fortress, which guards the border, is more than a match for them, and by this time they're more weary formalities than anything else. Ed suspects she may be exaggerating a few details, but she makes him laugh once or twice, and it's worth it.

.

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.

The cheerful, talkative, bold-as-brass Deryn seems there to stay, and she gradually pulls Edward out of his sulk. Even if she might be damn useless at fighting, she knows how to tell a story, and Al's the most engaged Ed has seen him in weeks.

Inevitably she asks where they came to East City from. Ed and Al exchange glances, as ever wary of telling too much of their story, but eventually Ed admits they came from Rush Valley.

Deryn laughs. "You're winding me up," she says, leaning over to punch his arm—the left one, thankfully. "So did I! We must've been on the same train. Those automail mechanics are _mad_, aren't they?"

"Yeah," says Ed, grinning despite himself. "One of 'em offered to give me the best deal on a new arm—_if_ I let him chop off the flesh one first." He pulls a face, then grins again, remembering the man whose arm he exploded in an arm-wrestling contest. And then there was Paninya's missile-equipped knee. And the baby delivery. Yes, Rush Valley _was_ rather "mad." "But why...?" He looks at her limbs, hard—her arms aren't metal, certainly...

"Just—dropping off a friend," she says quickly, looking down at her lap.

The way she says "friend" reminds Ed an awful lot of the way _he_ says "Winry"—not that that means anything about him and her, he appends hastily. He _hmm_s. "A friend, huh?"

"Aye, a friend. Alek," she adds, smiling to herself, and Ed remembers that she said the leather coat—her only apparent possession besides a military-issue kit bag—was his, too.

She avoids further clarification, and Ed and Al don't say much about what they were doing in Rush Valley, either, but as the conversation clatters as comfortably along as the train they're in, she mentions this boy, whoever he is, once or twice again.

And Ed looks at her face, its curves picked out in gold by the light of the sinking sun, and wonders.

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><p><strong>iii. coming home<strong>

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_let the rain_

_wash away_

_all the pain of yesterday  
>(Diddy - Dirty Money feat. Skylar Grey)<em>

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><p>.<p>

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It's sometime in the middle of the damn night, and Ed should be asleep, getting ready to face the terror of Teacher, but the pains in his leg and arm awaken him.

He sits and rubs his left hand over the shoulder port, hoping that the heat will ease the pain. Who is he kidding, though?—he should know by now that that doesn't have a chance in hell of working.

Outside, of course, the rain is blowing in sheets, clinging with desperate droplet fingertips to the train's window before flying back out into the wind. It's not as bad as the storm back at Dominick's house—it'll blow over by the morning—but still, a damn nuisance to someone who's affected by every change in pressure.

A low laugh startles him. He knows Al is awake, of course, awake and painfully lonely, but he's _pretending_ to sleep for Deryn's benefit—another damn nuisance. And besides, that laugh has none of the thin, metallic, painful-reminder echo of his little brother's.

"You too, aye?" Deryn, of course. He should've known.

Ed squints but can't quite make her out, besides a pale smudge of a face and an even paler glint of hair. "What do you mean?" he snarls, aware that the ache is making him testy but not caring in the slightest. "That I'm awake too? Well, you've made damn sure of it _now_, bastard."

She makes an impatient noise in her throat. "That's a load of yackum and you know it. No, I mean your _automail_, daftie. It's aching, aye? So's mine."

Ed's glad she can't see his face; he's sure he's making a supremely stupid face of shock. "But how..." he starts, then swallows, the fear beginning to coil snakelike around his belly. Is she going to _blackmail_ him? Find how _how_ he happened to lose two damn limbs and tell the higher-ups? He pauses and tries again, voice husky, trying to sound appropriately threatening. "How did you _know_?"

"I shook your hand, aye?" Deryn says, as if it should be obvious. "Gloves can't hide everything. And I _know_ how an automail leg sounds. Besides—rumors. Apparently you're fond of ripping off your shirt to intimidate your enemies." Ed can practically _hear_ the grin in her voice.

He clears his throat, thrown a little off balance. She sounds frank, open—not like she's a damn schemer like Colonel Bastard. And obviously Al thinks she's all right—if this gets out of hand, he can "wake up" at any time and back Ed up, but apparently right now he's judged Ed capable of handling it on his own. He curses his little brother and his plans silently and works up a fitting growl. "All right, I get it. You're a damn smartass. But _you've_ got automail too?"

Deryn's silent for a while—a _long_ while. Briefly Ed fears he might've pushed too far—but if she's prying into _his_ business, he's got the right to do the same to her. "Aye," she says finally. Her voice is a touch higher and sounds—frail, somehow, like it's just barely held together and might shatter at the lightest touch. Of course—anything that'd take a leg would be pretty traumatizing, Ed figures, and he can't expect a fifteen-year-old girl to have just shrugged it off. "Well, we're _all_ bloody geniuses, us alchemists." The words are stronger, now, infused with a growing false bravado that Ed recognizes all too well, as Deryn pulls her armor back around herself. "Bollixed my left leg up right and good two years ago—sodding near burned it off. Pure dead useless, it was. So I got it amputated and replaced with a shiny new one. My brother got me something they use up north—higher carbon content, and it's lighter than regular steel, too. Works all right. I smashed my knee all up a couple of months ago, and the damp's got _that_ off, and of course the port. Can't sleep, is all." Somehow Deryn's managed to make it sound like it's no big deal, that she's used to it—and maybe she is, but her next words slip a bit. "And I just reckoned you might want to... talk."

Ed wonders briefly what to say. If Deryn were wallowing in self-pity, broken and uncertain, he'd tell her what he told Rosé—get up, keep walking, at least you have legs to carry you where you want to go. But that's the thing—she _hasn't_ got both her legs. And she's coping just fine on her own; by the way she was talking earlier, he guesses she might regret telling him this, letting him see her this _weak_, come morning.

Truthfully, he admires her for it, for the way she's walked strong and steady on with part of her missing. It reminds him of himself and Al, that strength.

Then he reminds himself that she's lost less than _half_ of what he has, and she can't hope to compare to what Al's missing, and he hardens his heart again. She wants people's damn pity? Fine—but she won't get any here. (He conveniently forgets that if he _did_ give her pity, she'd probably shove it right back at him.) So Ed settles for a grunt and a, "Sorry."

He hears the rustle of cloth as she shrugs. "Two years is plenty long enough for me to get over it. It's just a bother, right now... and why pretend?"

.

.

.

Why pretend indeed. That's all he's been doing for four years now, Ed realizes, pretending that it's all right until he can force it to be so. It's a damn effective strategy—and he doesn't appreciate this girl he barely knows mocking it. "So you don't _keep me awake_, bastard," he snarls.

Deryn sighs to herself and mutters something about "barking stubborn _Clanker_—"

"What's that?" Ed interrupts, his annoyance momentarily forgotten in the face of his alchemist's curiosity. He's still getting the hang of her slang, and that's a word he's certainly never heard before.

"Clanker? Someone who has automail," Deryn says with automatic speed, then pauses. He can hear the blush in her voice as she continues, "or works with it. Just an old term from back home."

Ed can tell there's more to know—that word, or the way she used it, has some other connotation for her—but right now he aches too much to ask questions, and he feels himself settling back towards the blurry edge of sleep. He grunts in affirmation and tilts his head back against the seat.

Deryn, apparently, is still feeling damn chatty. "I'm sorry for asking," she says quietly. "I wouldn't want someone asking me that, either—if I were actually awake right now, which I'm not." There's a laugh in her last words, and Ed can't help but smile into the darkness, because that's how he feels. "I just—wanted you to know I knew, aye? My da always said that the more people you give a secret to, the less you have to carry yourself. But that's yackum. Sometimes you've got to carry it yourself. And if you didn't want to tell me—well, I wanted to spare you that choice, is all." Softly, to herself, she adds, "No secrets."

And that's another mystery right there, but Ed's tired now and the pain seems to be fading. "It's all right," he says, because at that moment it is, floating anchorless and insulated in the dark and recognizing the familiar loneliness in her voice, and he swears he can see her smile.

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><p><strong>Writing in present tense is way more fun than it should be :D<strong>

**A note on spellings: I've seen some crazy variations, thanks of course to various translational interpretations of the original Japanese, but hopefully you know what I mean, and I'll try to be consistent in my choices.**

**My interpretation of our dear Colonel Mustang is based largely on his reaction to Winry upon first meeting her. I can't help but feel that I didn't quite nail his complexity, but of course, we all know he's just fulfilling his reputation as East City's greatest menace to young women. ;)**

**"Glaschu" is an ancient Celtic name for Glasgow, naturally, and appropriately AU for my taste.**

**Deryn's brother Jaspert is, of course, neither a second lieutenant nor a member of the army, but, as Amestris has neither an air force nor a navy and therefore no coxswains, I had to improvise. Deryn herself is afforded the "effective" rank of all State Alchemists, if you were unaware, quite a step up from lowly midshipmen.**

**Ed is _fun _to write, obligatory short rages and random angst and all. :D He's also really complex, and this is my first time writing him, so please let me know if he (or any other character) seems unacceptably OOC in any way. Feedback is always, always appreciated, even over compliments.**

**And that brings me to the final part of this A/N: the part where I beg you to review so I know that you don't hate it and that it isn't so deplorable that I should just give up on it. So review, please! Updates will be biweekly and probably vary wildly in length depending on what I was industrious enough to get done. :P I don't really have a concrete idea of how long this'll end up, but it oughtn't to be _too _terribly long. :)**


	2. part the second

**A/N: So. Hello. This is a bit late, due mainly to the fact that I am an insufferably lazy bum and leave everything to the last minute. :D But hey, I got it done, and it's as long as last fortnight's, so that's all good. Not that any of you will necessarily _care _if it's awfully late, considering that a grand total of twenty-seven people—some of whom, I suspect, were the same person on different days—have viewed this story. :3 Ah, well, I'm mainly doing this for myself, anyway. Nobody but me ships this, either... XD**

**This time has three... um... song things again. I have also discovered that I physically lack the ability to write short things. Seriously. I couldn't write a couple-hundred-word drabble if I _tried_. I would suck so badly at the iPod shuffle game... XD Anyway, yeah. These... _units_... are mostly Deryn's backstory—no action yet. Also, awkward moments, because those are key to the beginning of a relationship! :D**

**DISCLAIMER: If I were either Scott Westerfeld or Arakawa Hiromu, _Leviathan _would have the world's most epic manga adaptation _ever_. :D And gee, I sure _wish _I were these songs' artists...**

* * *

><p>.<p>

.

.

* * *

><p><strong>iv. iris<strong>

_._**  
><strong>

_and I don't want the world to see me_

_cuz I don't think that they'd understand_  
><em>(Goo Goo Dolls)<em>

* * *

><p>.<p>

.

.

Izumi greets them with her normal charm—that is to say, when she shakes Al's hand, she flips him over her shoulder and onto the ground, and she both kicks open a door into Ed's face and gives him a friendly "slap" upside the head that nearly knocks him facefirst into the dirt. Ed is reminded, strongly, of just how terrified he is of Teacher's wrath.

Deryn, upon witnessing this, is understandably rather reluctant to shake Izumi's hand and therefore bows, earning herself a smile and a reasonably courteous, "Who're you?"

"State Alchemist Deryn Sharp, ma'am," she says carefully, having already witnessed Izumi's reaction to Ed's credentials. "I'm traveling with Ed and Al to gain some experience.

Predictably, Izumi's smile disappears as if wiped off. "Experience," she repeats flatly.

"Aye, ma'am. I've only been a State Alchemist for about six months, and my CO reckoned I could do with some training up," she says. Ed stores the further bit of information about her past and admires the way she's interpreted Mustang's explanation into something complimentary of Ed; she must have reasoned that his teacher would be proud of her student.

This assumption proves to be correct, or perhaps Deryn has just managed to be particularly inoffensive in general. In any case, Izumi gives her a friendly punch to the shoulder, which the girl bears with remarkably stoicism despite the fact that it knocks her several inches sideways, and says, "Well, I suppose you won't be too much of a burden to us. Don't eat much, do you?"

"Actually, ma'am," Deryn says, blushing, "I've been told that I eat like a horse."

"Just like Ed," says Izumi cheerfully, "and my dear husband. Don't worry, lots of food is necessary for an active lifestyle!"

Deryn makes eye contact with Ed and mouths, "_Active lifestyle?_" He just grins, half amused by her obvious apprehension and half terrified himself.

"Tell me," Izumi continues, "someone must have taught you well, if you're a dog of the military already. Who?" His teacher is nothing if not to-the-point, Ed thinks.

Deryn pushes a hand through her hair, a nervous habit that Ed has noticed. "My da taught me... my specialized alchemy, a bit back, and then I've been Dr. Barlow of Central's assistant for about two months now. She taught me properly."

Izumi nods in rare approval, apparently skimming over the "specialized alchemy" detail, which is a damn shame. Ed would certainly like to learn what Deryn means by _that_. "I know her. Biological alchemy, right? Chimeras? She's done some good work. But," she adds, "she's not a State Alchemist. In fact, she's as much against the program as I am. So didn't she discourage you from becoming military?"

Ed shudders. Deryn worked for someone who made _chimeras_? A goddamn biological alchemist! His fists clench by his sides unconsciously. Dimly, memories flicker across his mind of the last biological alchemist he met—light winking off Shou Tucker's glasses—the way his face looked as Ed half beat him to death, no remorse, none—the thing that had been a sweet little girl and a cuddly bear of a dog—"_Let's play_,"—

Deryn is smiling—obviously she's never met someone like that—or has she?—she might be lying, lying as smoothly as goddamned Tucker had—"_since my wife left_"—what the first chimera had said—"_I want to die_"—but Ed's face must be showing his fury, because she gives him a brief concerned look. "Actually, ma'am," she says to Izumi, "I was already in the military when she met me. She just—took me in—while I was recovering from an injury."

Ed's calmer now, helped by the hand Al puts on his shoulder, and he recalls that this must be the "smashed" knee Deryn mentioned last night. He thanks Izumi silently for pulling this additional bit of her history out of her; he'll admit that he's quite curious now about where she's been, what she's done.

"Tried to convince me to stay," Deryn continues, "but—the military's the only life I have. I _couldn't_ leave."

Teacher looks at her inscrutably for a moment, her dark eyes calculating something, then cracks another smile and punches Deryn again, in what looks to be exactly the same spot. Deryn further proves this by wincing, visibly. "Well," Izumi says, "even _I_ can't argue with that. Come on and talk a little, and then we'll eat—maybe you can tell me a little about how Nora is doing? I didn't see her the last time I was in Central. And, of course, you guys!" She turns to smile at Ed and Al, and Ed feels included again. "What've you been up to?"

.

.

.

When the brothers' tale of blood and loss is done, after Izumi has chewed them out, after they've apologized again and again, Deryn steps into the silence.

She stands, her face glistening with a sole tear track, and hugs Al, fiercely, and Ed knows that she's trying to physically reach through the hard armor, as if by doing so she could get through to the little boy underneath, _make_ Al feel the comfort his body can't. He could tell her it doesn't work; he's tried it himself enough times—

And then she's hugging him, too, her chin tucked over his head, so close he can feel her heat and see the pulse in her neck. His arms go up and around her of their own accord, some ingrained muscle memory, and suddenly he's not _being_ hugged but participating in one, looking for comfort instead of receiving it.

"You dafties," she says into his hair, stirring the strands with her breath, her voice low and touched with roughness. "You sodding _dafties_. My da's gone too."

There's so much emotion in those last four words. Not pity, like Ed hates, but _empathy_: she's seen at least a corner of his own personal hell, she's been through it, she was _there_, she has the right to be sympathetic. Some part of Ed is yelling that she knows _nothing_, that she's lost _nothing_, hasn't seen the Gate, hasn't looked Truth in the face, hasn't paid the price, hasn't watched the last person she has in the world be torn away, hasn't brought him back with her own flesh and blood—but that part of him is somewhere far off and tinny, like the part that's cussing him out for being _weak_ and hugging her in the first place.

And then she's letting go and stepping back, giving him his privacy and time to pull his armor around his tortured center again, releasing the moment of infinity that they'd shared.

But her hug is still tingling around his shoulderblades, and he has to take a second to wipe the surprise off of his face.

Izumi had just hugged him, sympathetic, motherly, and Deryn's hug was like that, too—but different, somehow.

He'll remember it, he knows.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><strong>v. i'll make a man out of you<strong>

.

_you're the saddest bunch I ever met_

_but you can bet_

_before we're through  
>(Donny Osmond - "Mulan" soundtrack)<em>

* * *

><p>.<p>

.

.

The next days pass in a blur of sameness: hours and hours at the Dublith library, finding nothing but legends and rumors, Deryn coming every time and reading more basic texts, and the familiar sparring and working out with Izumi. She may not be their master anymore, but she's still perfectly willing to teach them a lesson.

She seems to draw the line at Deryn, however. The girl limps around half the time, stubbornly refusing a cane or crutch, and although she denies anything's wrong—"_just a wee bit of an ache, is all_"—it's clear she's in no shape to train intensively, and Izumi, if nothing else, is unwilling to beat up on a cripple. Instead, she feeds Deryn a steady diet of alchemy textbooks and encourages her help around the house and shop, although she won't let her within ten feet of the kitchen since a mysterious incident that apparently involved a small fire, two buckets of water, a melted frying pan, and some very well-done sausages.

This particular afternoon Deryn is perched outside on a rock with her book, watching Ed and Al spar with Teacher. The Dublith heat is as intense as ever, but she appears to have something against shorts, possibly because of the automail scars Ed hasn't seen but knows must exist. In any case, she's barefoot, wearing loose pants, which are cuffed up to just below her knees, and a standard blue military jacket, long-sleeved and exceedingly stifling-looking, open over a tank top. (He hasn't seen her in short sleeves, either, come to think of it. She's a far cry from Winry, the only other girl his age Ed knows well, and he wonders if this is at all normal.) Her automail shines bright and well-cared-for in the sun from where it's crossed over her other leg, and she watches over the edge of her book with interest as Izumi catches Ed's punch in her palm and flips him over her shoulder in one move.

That concludes their training session, and as Izumi is walking back inside, cookbook still in hand, Deryn stands and makes her way over to her. "Mrs. Izumi, ma'am? D'you have a sword?"

Izumi stops and looks at her in brief surprise. Ed's in agreement; what the hell could Deryn want with a _sword_? Then Teacher shrugs and says, "No, but you can make one yourself if you put it back when you're done."

"Aye," acknowledges Deryn, then crouches right there and starts to mark a circle on the dirt with the piece of chalk she always has on her. "Anything special in the soil here?"

"More iron than usual," says Izumi, and then turns and goes back inside. She looks disinterested, but Ed knows she'll ask him or Al about it later.

"Deryn?" his brother ventures, walking over to stand near her. "What do you want with a sword?"

"To fence with," she says as if it's completely obvious, scratching a final geometry on the ground. "Don't suppose either of you know how to, properly?" Both of the Elrics shake their heads; although Ed is not entirely sure of what she means by "proper" fencing, he doubts fighting with the blade he often transmutes from his automail counts. "Then I'll just practice by myself," she continued without skipping a beat. "Check this, will you, Al? I haven't done this one since—well, _never_, actually."

Al crouches and looks her diagram over briefly. "Looks good," he says, clapping her on the back and standing up again with the creak of unoiled joints. Somehow, without Ed quite noticing, those two have become friends; Al's just so _nice_ to everyone. Deryn grins—"Brilliant!"—and puts her hands on the circle.

Ed watches with interest, as it's the first time he's seen Deryn transmute anything (he _still_ has no idea what the hell her State Alchemist name is about). The familiar bright blue light crackles around her fingers with the competency he'd expect from a dog of the military, and she stands, pulling the sword out of the ground. It's plain, without any decoration whatsoever, and not quite like any other weapon Ed has ever seen. For one thing, it's an odd shape, different from the ceremonial swords of the military or the Fürher's famed blades. For another, the edge is quite obviously dull as a butter knife, and it just _looks_ like it's meant for practice, not to harm.

Deryn swishes it through the air expertly, looking pleased, and then sticks it upright in the ground in front of her and yanks her jacket off, tossing it aside and baring her arms.

Ed can't stifle a squeak of surprise. It's not the arms themselves that startle him—although they're surprisingly well-muscled; he wonders again what, exactly, she did before he met her—but the tattoos that twine them. Black and silver, they curl in seemingly abstract patterns around her forearms and up to her shoulders, with runes that he half-recognizes inscribed within the circles they form.

"Deryn," he manages, "what—?"

She looks over at him in puzzlement, then down at her own arms in realization. "Oh—they're for my alchemy," she says, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Look—" and Deryn flips her wrists toward him, showing pentagrams and yet more runes traced there. "I can activate it when I touch them together." She crosses them and holds them out in demonstration. The tattoos suddenly glow with bright blue alchemical light, and she lets her arms drop back down to her sides quickly.

Ed frowns at them more closely, trying to decipher the marks and patterns, his curiosity piqued. He's met alchemists before with tattoos as a sort of transmutation shortcut, but none of them looked like these. Al asks the obvious question, sounding as excited as Ed feels: "But what do they _do_? How do they work?"

Deryn sighs and chews at her lip, looking thoughtful. "Well—" she starts, then crouches and begins to draw in the dirt again, beckoning for Ed and Al to come see. Ed sits crosslegged next to her and peers around her shoulder; with a quick hand, she's sketching the runes on her arms. "D'you know any of these?"

"Wind?" Ed says slowly, pointing at the center one. It's repeated several times, with variations. And there's another one, too... actually, it's on Mustang's gloves. "And oxygen? Gas?"

She nods, underscoring them with a thin finger. "Aye. Wind. I'm an—air alchemist, I reckon you could call it. I _make_ wind."

Al's next question is one word long. "How?"

Deryn copies Ed's pose, putting her elbows on her knees and propping her chin in her hands. "Wind is caused by differences in air pressure, aye? Different temperatures cause different densities in the air, and it moves from high to low." The boys nod. It's basic meteorology. "Air alchemy is learning to manipulate those densities to create gusts. Fairly well-developed, and bloody _complicated_. All of these," she traces the circles in her tattoos, "are for different types of transmutation."

"But _how_ do you do it?" Ed asks. This is damn _fascinating_—and what's more, the fact that he _hasn't_ heard of it before is goddamn weird, too. "How, specifically, do you change the density?"

"I move the molecules further apart in the area I want the air to rush into. Like I said, bloody complicated. And annoying. And it takes a lot of focus."

"But you're not _touching_ them!" Basic rule: you can't transmute something you're not touching. Very basic.

"Aye, well, actually, I am," Deryn says. "Through the air, see? It's matter too. It's like how—how you can push up a wall or what-have-you when you're touching the ground _near_ it, not necessarily on top of it. That's how I move the molecules—like you would gather nearby matter together for a transmutation, except the process is reversed." She holds out her wrists, one of each of them. "That's what these are for—basic concept's the triggering point, aye?"

Ed takes her arm and traces a finger absently over the circle's shape, fascinated. It is indeed an odd reversal of the basic shapes he's used to. Deryn is staring at him with an odd expression, so he drops it and lets his hands fall back to his lap

"It's like Mustang's, Brother," says Al. Ed nods; it does resemble what Mustang uses to change the oxygen content in the air, and the concept of transmuting through gas is the same. "Who came up with that?"

She shrugs. "I haven't the slightest. It's bloody ancient. Been passed down in our family for generations. My da taught me." A suddenly—well, not _sad_, but inward-turned, somehow—look crosses her face, and Ed suddenly remembers that her father's dead. He feels momentarily uncomfortable for bringing it up, but shrugs _that_ off quickly enough. Deryn clears her throat and continues. "Said some of it came from the East—from Xing."

Xing? Ed doesn't know anything about their alchemy, or even that they had any. He supposes it's a reasonable assumption, and besides, it would explain why he doesn't understand most of the damn runes. "But how do you know what the air will do once you move the molecules?" he asks, changing the topic.

"Practice. Sodding _loads_ of practice." Deryn pulls a face. "I have to understand how I want to move the air, at what velocity, how much, how heavy it is, even what it has to go 'round, and adjust my transmutations accordingly. You get a feel for it after a while. Not the most accurate of alchemy.

"Uh-huh," mutters Ed, looking at the runes at the ground again. This must take _so much_ goddamn concentration... how does she do it at any speed at all?

"Can't do wee accurate gusts," Deryn is continuing to herself, "like for propelling a thrown object through the air. Maybe with more practice... it would be dead useful with knives and such, almost like... what d'you call it... telekinesis. Nor big ones; too much to move. If I could, I could do _weather_." She makes eye contact with Ed and smiles. "You're still curious, aye? I'll sketch it all out for you later. Right now I've got to fence." She stands, brushing her trousers off, and pulls her sword out of the ground again. Ed and Al move back as she strikes an odd pose, feet at right angles and knees bent, and shuffles to face the wall.

"That's..." Apparently Al can't think of any suitable adjectives. That's all right; Ed can't either.

"Yeah," he agrees. He'd privately thought of Deryn as a little—well, a little _ignorant_, to tell the truth. The sort of basic things she'd been learning in the library had indicated a rudimentary education. But _this_—this is specialization and depth in an amount he's rarely seen. A valuable and complex skill. No wonder she hasn't had time to learn much of anything else; no wonder the military snapped her up right away.

"Amazing," Al completes.

"Yeah." But now Ed's watching her feet shuffle back and forth in a staccato dance across the ground, shrouding her calves in dust, and her sword and automail flash well-practiced silver in the sun, and his mind isn't quite on what he's saying.

.

.

.

A few days later, she has a well-practiced routine of waiting through the sparring, then getting up and exercising her own martial art. The shop's wall is pocked with tiny holes where the tip of her weapon—it's called a saber, she told Ed—has struck it.

He stays to watch every day, trying to learn a bit more about swordfighting from this formalized sport. Usually Al lingers with him just to be companionable, but he has less of an interest in it than Ed does. Today he's already back inside, even though Ed's not quite done sparring with Teacher yet.

It comes as a bit of a surprise, therefore, when Deryn breaks their routine, walking up just as Izumi has disappeared back inside and asking, without preamble, "Can you teach me to do that?"

"Do what?" Ed looks up from where he's been mopping his face with his jacket, panting, to see her looking at him earnestly.

"Fight like you do. I reckon I can punch all right, but the..." she makes a vague gesture, "rest of it..."

Ed hesitates. He's damn exhausted, and not really up to pulling his punches so as not to hurt her. "Why can't Izumi teach you?" he suggests. "She's better at it than I am."

"Aye." Deryn looks briefly embarrassed. "It's just... she's sodding _scary_... and she'd beat the clart out of me..."

"She'd say you'd learn from it." But Ed grins, tossing his makeshift towel aside. _What the hell_, he thinks. He's tired... but not _that_ tired, and he'd benefit from the extra exercise anyway. Besides, something in the way she asked... or maybe the way she's looking at him... makes him damn reluctant to turn her down. "But don't expect me to go easy on you just 'cause you're new at this."

"'Course not," Deryn grins, stepping back to take her place in front of him. She looks down at her feet, which are bare again, with the same type of rolled-up pants. Now that everyone's seen her tattoos, she's been wearing a tank top every day, too. "Bare feet?" she asks.

"Sure," Ed says, glancing at his own, one normal and one glittering in the sun. He's already in shorts and sleeveless top, ready to fight. "Whenever you're ready. Just come and try to punch me."

"Aye." She drops into a practiced fighting stance, and Ed remembers when she'd punched him, and damn well, in the street. This might be a little harder that he'd thought.

He deflects Deryn's first punch with his automail, and she winces, pulling back. Exploiting her momentary exposure, Ed aims a kick to take her down, but she brings her knee up, catching it on her automail. Ed is forced to stumble a few steps back; if he hadn't instinctively kicked with his left leg, he thinks his goddamn foot might have been broken.

Deryn grins. "Dead useful, automail," she says, then aims a quick punch at his left side. Ed manages to sidestep it, but her arm is gone before he can grab it.

They continue like this for several minutes, mostly ducking each other's blows but landing a few solid hits—she's as strong as he'd thought. They both try to avoid hitting each other's automail, as it's hard enough to do serious damage, and Ed only blocks with his right arm.

Finally, though, he sees an opening with it, and he can't resist. Too quickly for her to register what he's doing, Ed grabs her exposed wrist with his automail and uses one of Izumi's favorite moves, flipping her over his shoulder to land flat on her back in the dirt.

For a moment Deryn just lies there, fighting for the breath that's been knocked out of her. She's going to give up, Ed thinks, stop the sparring now that she's beaten and go back to her goddamn mincing fencing.

Instead, she clambers immediately back to her feet, spitting the dust out of her mouth and slapping at her back. Deryn's got quite a lot of pride too, he realizes. But all she does is ask, "How did you do that?"

Ed explains the move, step-by-step—how it's about using your opponent's mass and momentum against them—and she nods in understanding. "Let's try this again, then."

A dozen or so blows later, she tries it against him. Ed's ready for it, though, and between him and her inexperience it doesn't have its intended effect. She still manages to flip him, but she overbalances and falls, too.

In fact, Deryn lands right on top of Ed, driving what little air he's gotten into his lungs right back out again. Their automail clangs together, and he feels her wince.

Actually, he realizes suddenly, he can feel just a little more than that. Her thudding heartbeat, for one thing, through the thin fabric of her tank top—and the fact that she _is_ a girl, whereas he himself is most definitely _not_.

Blue eyes meet his for a fraction of a second before Deryn rolls quickly off of him, sitting up and gasping for breath. "Blisters, _that_ went pear-shaped quickly," she says ruefully, a hand pressed to her heaving chest.

Ed is a bit slower at sitting up, considering he received an elbow to the ribs sometime during the separation process. "Yeah," he says, hoping she'll think that his red cheeks are from exercise and not from the fact that she was pressed flat against him not five seconds ago. "It did."

.

.

.

* * *

><p><strong>vi. drive by<strong>

_on the other side of the street I knew_

_stood a girl that looked like you  
>(Train)<em>

* * *

><p><em>.<em>

_._

_._

People in general, Ed has decided, are too damn stupid to have possibly made it this far in the evoluntionary process without some sort of divine intervention. (Even though he doesn't believe in God. It's just that irrefutable.) Or maybe their collective vision is just utterly screwed up.

Case in point: the person handing out tickets at the Dublith train station. She asks them politely if they'd like to make their tickets to South City round-trip.

Normally, this is the kind of attitude cultivated in service people: helpful. Ed and Deryn _could_ use round-trip tickets; they plan to return as soon as the goddamn military assessment they both forgot about is over. But it's the _way_ she says it: smiling at Deryn, she enquires, "Would you and your sister like to make those round-trip, sir?"

Wrong thing to say. _Definite_ wrong thing to say. Ed is hard on the heels of Deryn's "_I am not a barking boy!"_ with his "_I am not a goddamn girl!"_, and he matches her decibel for decibel.

Taking a deeply enraged breath, Deryn adds, "_And we are _not _bloody siblings_!"

They both glare at the poor woman, who has flushed an interesting puce and appears to be attempting to shrink away entirely. She stammers, "Um—ah—yes, of course, my mistake. I'm... terrifically sorry... the military uniform, you see... and I can't quite see you, sir." She glances apologetically at Ed. "My counter's too tall, I'm afraid."

The _only_ thing that keeps Ed from leaping said counter and punching her right in her goddamn face is the fact that she didn't, _technically_, call him short. And, of course, the fact that Deryn appears to have sensed his increased ire and has transferred her glare to _him_.

She sighs and tells the woman, who is still shaking slightly, "Aye, no, that's all right. Understandable, really." Quirking a little smile, she makes a broad gesture that seems to indicate her own bulky uniform and close-shorn hair and Ed's braid. The woman looks instantly relieved. "Um, and aye on the round-trip, too. How much'll that be?"

Suddenly Ed feels a little tug on his hand, and he realizes with a jolt that Deryn's already paid the woman the appropriate number of cenz and is now looking at him impatiently. _He's_ been staring off into space, attempting to control his rage enough to function without destroying anything or screaming. Blinking at her, he reluctantly falls into step.

"Sodding unobservant idiots," she says under her breath, and Ed smiles. So she _isn't_ actually calm; she was just keeping a momentary hold on her temper. "Not even dressed as a boy anymore, and they _still_ don't notice. Could've saved myself the barking trouble."

Now, _that_ is intriguing. "'Dressed as a boy anymore'?"

Deryn looks at him, "oops" scrawled across her face. "Barking spiders, did I actually say that? Blisters. Let's get settled, shall we?

Ed nods, even though she's just stalling for time, and waits until they're seated on a nearby bench to prompt, "So?"

Sighing, Deryn yanks off her jacket and gives him an aggrieved look. "_So_ I was a boy for a while. Or _pretending_ to be one, for my officers' sake."

Ed's head is spinning. Is she seriously telling him she _crossdressed_ in the _military_? "But... _why_?"

She laces her fingers together. "Simple. Do you know any female State Alchemists?"

An automatic "Yeah, of course" is on Ed's lips, but then he stops to consider it. It should be an easy question, but actually... "No," he admits.

Deryn raises an eyebrow. "Aye. _Officially_, the policy is for completely integrated forces, but even among regular soldiers and officers, there's only a wee amount of highly qualified women. And you're right—there _are_ no female State Alchemists... and besides, if there were, d'you _really_ think they'd let them go to the front lines? Or even go charging around like you do?"

Ed shakes his head. What she's saying, he's coming to realize, is, in fact, true. His country claims progress, but really plenty of prejudice lurks still. He himself might say that the front lines were no place for women... but he's seen what people like Riza Hawkeye can do; he's not goddamn dumb enough to decry female soldiers

"Aye. And a _fifteen_-year-old girl? No chance in blazes they'd let me in to do the sorts of things I wanted." Deryn snorts. "So I dressed as a boy for my evaluation, and soon enough they had me on active duty. They'd boot me out in a squick and ship me home to my ma if I told them who I was... I kept it up. 'Course, it all fell apart when I got injured. Dr. Barlow helped me shush it up and convinced the military to take me back once I recovered, but now..." She looks down at her hands and swallows. "Now I'm here with you instead of out travelling, and I haven't even got Alek."

Ed is going to get her to tell him more about this Alek kid, her "friend"; _that_ little morsel is certainly interesting. But his head's already spinning with everything she's told him, and he can't even frame an appropriate question. The pure _audacity_ of what she did—

Deryn looks pensive, now, but as if she's hiding her sadness. Before Ed can formulate any sort of apology—indeed, any reply at all besides "oh"—the loudspeakers blare the last call for their train, the arrival of which they somehow managed to miss. And in the rush of getting to their car, Ed's words are swallowed and the moment, the rare insight into his companion, is gone.

.

.

.

But of course the idiocy doesn't stop there—as if Ed's life couldn't get any more topsy-turvy. At Southern HQ, they are faced with yet _another_ woman whose social radar seems to be lacking.

They're supposed to be getting the paperwork for their evaluations, both of which they made up on the train, and Deryn is telling the woman their names. "_Miss_ Sharp," she says, shirking military protocol to ensure another unfortunate mistake doesn't occur, "and Mr. Elric."

The clerk pushes her glasses up her nose and searches her list. "Sharp, Elric—ah, yes, here you are." She fishes around for a few seconds and then hands Ed a stack of paper. "It's going to be more complicated than usual because it's overdue, and it might take longer," she informs him. "Make sure you and your girlfriend fill it out very carefully—"

Ed can _feel_ his face turn red. "_She is not my girlfriend!_" he yells, loudly enough that some people turn and stare. Goddamnit, why do people keep _thinking_ that? First with Winry, and then with Deryn... the sadistic bastards must just hate him. This is actually more embarrassing than being mistaken for a damn girl.

As the clerk stumbles through an apology that includes the word "assumed" three separate times, Ed looks over and sees that Deryn is rather spectacularly red, too.  
>Well, at least he isn't alone in his mortification, although why she would react so strongly—surely this hasn't happened to her before, what with the crossdressing and all?—is beyond him.<p>

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><p><strong>YAY BACKSTORY! I have put <em>way<em> too much thought into this. XD It was inordinately fun to make up, though.**

**Deryn's alchemy is entirely my own creation. Nobody in canon has anything of the sort, of course, but I tried to obey established laws without making up _too_ much stuff. I probably failed and disobeyed some fundamental rule that I am ignorant of. X) The science I cite is _probably_ correct, but then again, I didn't bother looking any of it up, so don't go using it on your chemistry tests. Oh, well, hopefully it's plausible and not Mary-Sue-ish... at least she can't perform clapping transmutations...**

**Deryn with tattoos is the coolest thing _ever_, in my personal opinion. I attempted to draw them but failed utterly, mostly because I can _not_ draw alchemical arrays and fail at life in general... :P**

**Awkward moments are awkward :3 Seriously, though, Ed _does_ have girly hair. And we all know he could totally take Deryn in a fight, sad as that is.**

**Yes, I used a song from a Disney movie. Don't judge me. It's a _good_ Disney movie, though—and it's applicable, although perhaps not entirely in the context of the song. ;) Speaking of non-applicable songs, "Drive By" is hardly about, well, mistaking people for the opposite gender. I just kidnapped a line that could be interpreted as such, since, you know, I couldn't think of any other songs that would work... X)**

**And now is the time when I beg pathetically for reviews. Just one? Please? 'Twould make me very happy... :D**


	3. part the third

**A/N: Aaaaaand it's late again. Aren't I fabulous? ;) Oh, well, it's here. And it's _long_. That last one down there is 3,000 words by itself. Plus, these were all kind of emotionally exhausting to write, except perhaps the first one, in that I had a sadface for the entirety of the second and third and the characters were all emotional, too. But it was fun! I got to use my character-crafting skills a lot!**

**These are—you guessed it—_more _backstory, mainly. I promise it's (almost) done after this, though. That's the problem with heavily-character-based fiction... not a lot of action... **

**I trust you remember the fight with Greed in the Devil's Nest and, of course, King Bradley's awesomeness? (He _is_ evil, but he's still awesome.) That has already happened. :)**

**REVIEW (OMG yes I actually have a review! XD):**

**Lyra Endless: Well, hello again! *waves* And you _bet_ it's possible! Thus is the glory of AUs. Alek and Winry... heh... well, you'll see how I dealt with _them _very soon indeed. And yes, her alchemy was pretty much picked to match her. XD No, she can't fly. People aren't really _designed_ for flying, if you know what I mean, and it would require a lot of precision to keep herself from, you know, flying and not spinning wildly out of control. Plus, if she crashed she'd die, so no. She _can _push things designed for flying, like hot air balloons, for example. Hmm... well, my reasoning for that was that he's so short (hah!) that the ticket lady could only really see his head, and you gotta admit that he has very girly hair. (Besides which, she wouldn't be paying much attention to him, as Deryn's the one buying the tickets.) But besides that, I agree with you—he's very masculine ;) Aww, thanks. I do try to be funny. Well... capitalizing them would ruin my whole intentionally-not-capitalizing-header-thingies thing, so I don't think I'll do that. I'm sorry if it annoys you, but it's just an aesthetic decision, you know? They _are_ capitalized in the chapter titles, though—I know perfectly well how they're _supposed_ to be. :) Thanks again, and I hope you continue to like it! There's more AU-ing just here, and as you said, the awesomeness _does _help. ;) And thanks for the review—it _did_ make me happy! :D**

**DISCLAIMER: Seriously, if I were Arakawa Hiromu _and _Scott Westerfeld at the same time, I'm pretty sure I'd have gender issues. And age issues. And cultural/language issues. So, no. I'm not. Oh, and also, Ed's language gets a bit worse later on, so if that sort of thing bothers you, this is a heads-up. It's temporary, though.**

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><p>.<p>

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><p><strong>vii. in his eyes<strong>

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_in his eyes, I can see_

_where my heart longs to be_  
><em>(from the Broadway musical "Jekyl &amp; Hyde")<em>

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><p>.<p>

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Alphonse Elric isn't tired, not at all. He hasn't been for four years now. What he is is weary; weary of travelling, weary of new places, weary of fighting and blood and death.

Flakes of Martel's dried blood are still falling out of his joints now and again, despite his brother's best cleaning efforts.

Everyone else is weary, too, although at least their bodies can show it instead of trapping it in an endless spiral in their minds. His brother appears to be napping against the train's window, an art he has perfected over years of interminable train journeys, and Deryn has out a pad of pencil and paper, her leg propped carefully horizontal on the seat across from her.

It's completely smashed, the foot missing and the plating of the calf twisted and mangled, hammered apart in one blow by Greed's impervious carbon armor. According to Al's brother, she was cursing the entire time they fought, enraged that she couldn't help him—although she did manage to slam Greed to the floor and pin him there with gusts of wind several times. That is, until the homunculus got wise to her and clocked her with a piece of rubble, knocking her unconscious until after the soldiers arrived. She still has the lump, and a scowl's been on her face ever since. Al knows the feeling—he _hates_ being helpless, useless, while somebody's in trouble; it's one of the things that makes him and his brother exactly alike.

Deryn will remain useless, or so she insists, until she gets her leg repaired, and so they're heading to Rush Valley, where her automail mechanic apparently resides. Ed's arm is fairly well smashed-up too; _he's_ going to see Winry to get it fixed. Al's looking forward to her reaction when she realizes that he's broken it again—that, and the two girls' meeting; he has a feeling they'll get along well.

Right now, though, he's bored, rather insufferably so, and he notices that for the first time in a while Deryn's frown is gone, replaced by a tiny smile and a look of concentration. So he leans over to see what she's drawing.

He doesn't know what he was expecting—a transmutation circle, maybe, something of an alchemical nature. It takes practice to be able to draw the designs quickly and well. Maybe the landscape outside of the train, flat and boring as it is, or something out of her own head.

Certainly not what he sees: his brother's head and shoulders, carefully rendered, bandages and fall of pale hair and all—although his eyes are open, which they aren't just now. And he hadn't noticed Deryn staring, or even studying him—this is from _memory_, or at least mostly.

Al would have choked with astonishment if his body still allowed such things. Instead, he's so startled that he makes a sort of high-pitched squeaking noise. Deryn looks up sharply from adding shading to the hollows of Ed's cheeks and immediately flushes, reflexively hugging her sketchbook to her chest. "Oi! Don't go looking at that!" she says loudly, and then darts a glance at Ed, realizing her mistake.

But it's too late; Al's brother's eyes have already opened in sharp-edged curiousity. "Look at _what_?" he says inquisitively.

Deryn's blush darkens, and she starts, "Noth—" but Al cuts her off.

"_You_, Brother," he says, knowing he would be smirking if he could.

"_Me_?" Ed demands, then holds out his hand for the sketchpad.

Deryn looks from him to Al and back again, then reluctantly hands it over, seeming to realize that she's outnumbered in this situation.

Ed stares at the sketch for a long time, face fixed in some emotion Al can't quite recognize after the initial flash of surprise. Then he flips through several other pages in the pad, studying each of them as if they're complex alchemical formulae, expression still frozen. Eventually he looks up. "_You_ drew this?" he asks, amazement in his voice. Deryn nods wordlessly, not meeting his eyes. "Just now?" Another nod. Al can appreciate his older brother's shock; he had no idea Deryn could draw, and comparing her sketch to his brother's scrawls is like comparing a van Rijn to a crayon drawing. No wonder Ed has been taken aback.

"Of _me_?" This last question is so ridiculous that it prompts Deryn to look up, a smile twitching around her mouth.

"Aye," she says finally, mustering some sarcasm, "unless you've a secret twin."

Al takes the sketchpad back from his brother's slack grip and turns the pages carefully, examining the other drawings his brother looked at. He sees automobiles and automail, strange creatures that he assumes must be Dr. Barlow's creations, a _tank_, of all things, and the same person, at least four times: a serious-looking boy, maybe Deryn's age, dark-haired and handsome. Beneath the first one a name is scrawled—_Alek_—the only labelling in the entire book. Al nods to himself; so _this_ is the mysterious "friend" Deryn mentions now and again.

He doesn't have a chance to ponder what this might mean, as Deryn snatches the pad right out of his hands. The cover rips slightly as it catches on Al's metal gauntlet. "That's _private_—" she hisses, only to be interrupted by Ed, who has apparently formulated a slightly less stupid question.

"Why the hell did you draw _me_?"

Deryn attempts a nonchalant shrug; she doesn't quite pull it off. "'Cause you were there," she says, a little too quickly. "Wasn't going to draw the landscape, was I?"

"What about Al?" tries Ed, turning a faint pink. "_He's_ here..."

Deryn shrugs again, in much the same way. "Dunno—it's just—don't you be offended, Al, it's not all bad—he doesn't look like he is, aye? His—outside—is different from his inside."

His brother darts a quick glance at Al, who twitches his shoulders in a tiny shrug of his own. It's true; often he himself forgets how people see him—until he looks down at his "hands", or bumps into something and only knows it when he hears the rattle—and he knows what a contrast there is between what he used to look like and how he is now. It must be hardest for people like Ed or Winry, he reflects—they must look at him now and see his real body overlaid on this suit of armor, a best-forgotten ghost lingering on despite everything.

Deryn's not done, though. "And you—well, _you_ look like you are." She makes a vague gesture in Ed's direction. "You're so—" She cuts herself off at the last second, thinking better of whatever she was about to say. Somehow she manages to blush yet darker, past scarlet into shades of maroon.

"Ah," Ed says, his own cheeks reddening a bit more. It's something he would normally never say. Al would grin if he could.

He may be weary, but that doesn't mean he can't laugh at these two's mutual obliviousness.

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><p><strong>viii. new divide<strong>

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_give me reason to prove me wrong_

_to wash this mem'ry clean  
>(Linkin Park)<em>

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><p>.<p>

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It doesn't take very long to get from the Rush Valley train station to Garfiel's automail shop, even with Deryn's crutches; she's very adroit with them. Ed suspects that she's used them quite a lot in the past.

Crutches or not, he can't quite look at her the same way. She was—well, she was goddamn _frightening_, a little, during the fight with Greed. Her alchemy rendered the homunculus damn helpless where Ed's spikes and punches did nothing; even if she couldn't hurt him, he was pinned. If not for Greed's carbon armor, she or Ed could have killed him in a heartbeat like that. It was even more goddamn disturbing to think that she could slam a normal person into the ground or a wall with enough force to break their neck or smash their head open.

She could turn right now and kill Ed without laying a damn finger on him.

That's not to mention something he didn't tell anyone, not even Al; she's goddamn frighteningly good at throwing knives. She brought two to the Devil's Nest—just in case, evidently—tucked into her boots without Ed even knowing they were there. And before Greed grew his full-body shield, she managed to beat his damn reflexes and land a knife in his eye; he regenerated, of course, but that's when he had wrecked her leg and tossed her away. He recognized her as an immediate threat, despite all his bluster about not fighting girls.

To Ed, who has always relied on his own fists—a lance or a sword here and there, walls and spikes maybe, but always close-quarters and always with the strength of his own body—this practiced competence is most frightening of all. As with Riza Hawkeye and her guns, he wonders how many knives she's landed in eyes before to be able to do it that quickly. Does it turn her stomach every time, or is she damn desensitized now, a person just another bull's-eye to hit?

Deryn doesn't _look_ any different, but every day reveals new layers to her.

And of course there's the drawing, just now on the train. Ed doesn't know what to make of that, either, or how she reacted. Or even how he himself feels right now; he is... embarrassed, maybe, that she did such a thing? That's what it most feels like, he decides.

But his embarrassment is quickly being replaced by apprehension as he approaches the automail shop, anticipation of what Winry will do to him when she discovers he's broken her damn precious automail again. And eagerness, of course, happiness to see his old friend.

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Winry does beat Ed up, of course, like the goddamn madwoman she is. She turns from him with a sunny smile and appears to notice Deryn for the first time. "Hi!" she greets cheerfully. "Who're you?"

Deryn looks to be still taking Winry in, crop top and jumpsuit and wrench and all. "Deryn Sharp," she says eventually, "Ed's, um, new subordinate. And travelling companion, as our superior officers would have it. And you're—Winry?"

"Rockbell," she agrees. "I grew up with Ed. And I'm his mechanic, not that he ever respects my work. Looks like you're in need of a mechanic yourself," she adds, looking at Deryn's ruined foot. "Did Ed get you wrapped up in his problems?"

"Aye, but—" Deryn starts, but Winry's not done.

"I'm really busy with all of my customers right now, but I know someone who could take you," she tells the other girl, turning to shout over her shoulder. "_Alek_!"

Ed is recovered enough from his beating to sit up by now, and so has a perfect view of the shocked look that crosses Deryn's face, one that only intensifies when a boy—Ed recognizes him as the same one from the drawings that were in Deryn's sketchbook—sticks his head out of the next room.

"What is it—" he starts, his voice touched with the hint of an accent Ed hasn't heard before. But that's as far as he gets before Deryn gets over her surprise and flings herself at him, crutches forgotten, laughing and chattering in a rapid stream of some foreign language.

"Deryn—" the boy—Alek—says, staggering a bit under the assault, and Ed's suspicions are confirmed. He does know her; he's not just some doppelgänger that Deryn has mistaken for the boy she knows.

She must be waiting for this final conformation, or perhaps she's just acting on impulse; in any case, she interrupts him again, this time with a kiss.

Ed blinks in shock. What the _hell_?—in the middle of an automail shop!—completely shameless—but that's Deryn for you. Her eyes are closed, unaware of her surroundings, but Alek's are open. He realizes he's staring and looks quickly away, catching sight of Winry, who has turned as white as a sheet. Well, _this_ confirms a few of his suspicions, too...

Deryn breaks the kiss and asks, softly and in Amestrian again, "Alek? Is something wrong?" She looks tender, anxious—very anxious, Ed thinks, having decided it's safe to look again. Did something go amiss—?

Alek starts to say something in what Ed assumes is his native language, then shakes his head and switches to Amestrian, too. "Yes," he says, the coldness of his voice a marked contrast to the emotion in his—girlfriend's? yes, she must be—tone. "Yes, something is." He clears his throat. "You've met Winry?"

"No," Deryn says suddenly, jerking back from him. Ed reaches the same conclusion an instant later and looks over at his childhood friend. She has a hand over her mouth, eyes stretched wide—she might just be an excellent actress, but Ed's sure he knows her better than that; she didn't know about this any more than he did. "No—" pleading— "no, don't tell me—"

Alek continues over her. He looks remorseful—like every word is like pulling teeth—but not _enough_, the bastard. "I met her right after you left—"

"_Shut the fuck up_!" Ed doesn't realize what he's said until after the words are out of his mouth, too far gone to take back. He doesn't even know why he said them—he feels... _betrayed_, somehow. But that's ridiculous; he wasn't in a relationship with Winry, didn't even _like_ her, sometimes—there's nothing _to_ betray. It's perfectly allowable for her to go kissing anyone she likes.

But he remembers the silly little arguments he and Al used to have—over who would marry Winry, someday. And he realizes she's always been like that: always there, always waiting for that someday, someone to fall back to in a changing world.

Maybe he _did_ have a bit of a crush on her.

But that won't happen now, he realizes. And he remembers the real reason he yelled at this foreign bastard. Deryn looks shattered, lost, in pain—she had far more than a hint of something to lose, if that kiss is anything to go by. "Don't you see what you're doing to her, you goddamn _bastard_?"

Everyone turns to stare at him—everyone, that is, except Deryn, who has overcome herself enough to muster one of her prize-winning glares. "You—" she starts, her voice breaking, more with rage than anything else, it sounds like. "You promised me sodding _forever_—and it's—it's been _two months_—I saw you two _weeks_ ago—"

This looks like it's hit home on Alek, who opens his damn mouth—to defend himself, maybe, or apologize, whatever it is that traitors do—but Deryn turns and flees before he can say anything, before the tears can come, limping out into the street faster than Ed would have thought possible for someone with one working leg.

He looks around in the shocked silence—Alek's mouth is still open, Winry is frozen with tears gathering in her eyes, Al hasn't moved since Winry said Alek's name—says, "_Shit_," and goes after her, because someone needs to do it.

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><p><strong>ix. you found me<strong>

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_where were you_

_when everything was fallin' apart?  
>(The Fray)<em>

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><p>.<p>

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Deryn doesn't get very far. Ed finds her, back to an alley wall two buildings down. Her arms are wrapped around her knees, and he can see the streaks of blood on her pants from her skinned palms.

She doesn't see him, or maybe she just doesn't want to acknowledge his presence; she's staring off into the distance. Ed knows exactly what she's doing—he's done it enough times himself; she's very busy not crying.

He stands there for a while, unsure what to do. He's always been lousy at comforting people. Should he say something? Hug her, maybe? Eventually he copies her position, tucking his chin over his knees. He's forgotten how comfortable this feels; hugging your knees is like having a portable stuffed animal, or maybe a parent.

"Miserable fucking bastard," he says flatly, not looking at her or elaborating. She'll understand what he means.

Deryn gives a shaky laugh. "Aye. Sodding—" she makes a small noise that could be a hiccup, but isn't— "sodding Clanker idiot."

Oh. "Clanker." Well, Ed _knew_ that the word had some meaning to her... "What's his goddamn problem?" he asks, turning to look at Deryn again. She's still staring hard, distancing herself from her immediate surroundings.

Attempting a smile, she says, "Lord knows. He's a boy. You don't make sense. Although," she adds, "it's not as if I'm bloody attractive. Your friend Winry—" She makes a soft noise and stops.

"_No_," Ed says furiously. "No, _don't_ blame _yourself_—_you_ didn't do anything—" He's not sure why he's so angry; maybe it's because she's just implied that boys are fickle and easily swayed and not to be trusted? This indignation can't be _all_ on her behalf—

"Why are _you_ out here?" Deryn interrupts rudely. "Didn't think you cared much about—well, _anything_, really."

"Of—of course I don't, bastard! Certainly not about you!" But she's got Ed there; Al is much more suited to these things. Even the _sight_ of someone crying makes him uncomfortable. "But—no one else was coming," he adds lamely. "I didn't—want you to be swarmed by those damn piranha mechanics."

His pathetic excuse earns him a smile, at least. "Hmpf," Deryn says, looking at him for the first time. "And you're right. I didn't do anything. That's the problem, aye?"

Ed has to think for a moment to come up with a reply. Dammit, he was never good at dealing with emotions. "What _that_ is is fucked up. Shouldn't be your issue. He promised you, right? Gotta keep a promise."

"Aye," Deryn says slowly. "He promised. But I knew it was too good to be true."

All this talk of promises is only reminding Ed of those _he's_ broken. "But how... how exactly did you meet him?" he asks quickly, changing the subject. It's not like him to go prying, no. But she said "two months"—wasn't that how long she was with that Dr. Barlow lady? And in this mood, she might very well answer his question—that, or shut him out completely, but the curiosity that all alchemists need is tingling in him now. Besides, he's heard that talking about problems is therapeutic—not that he himself has ever done it, or puts any trust in shrinks.

Deryn is silent a long time. "Might as well tell you," she says finally. "You'll get it out of me eventually. You're sodding persistent, you know that? I met him while I was in the military."

Ed had already gathered that; this isn't helpful. "But weren't you... dressed as a boy?"

"Aye." She laughs again, a little firmer this time. "Something you've to know about Dr. Barlow, first off: she may not like the military, or the Fürher, but she's all for Amestris. And she's sodding _important_. Old aristocracy or something. So when she says 'jump', the government asks her 'how high?', and if she'd like a military force with that.

"So there I was, bloody new to the whole palaver and dead scared of anyone finding me out, and Central decides that, as a State Alchemist, I'm 'qualified' to go with Dr. Barlow on a diplomatic mission to Drachma. Never mind that what she's doing there is giving them a new beastie she's cooked up as a peace offering, and I know sod all about biological alchemy; I'm free, I can fight, and so I'm going. There're five of us in the party—the rest are pure military—and we take the overland route. Long story short, we're crossing the Briggs Mountains—on foot, since there aren't any roads or tracks—when we get caught in an avalanche. Trapped us in a cave, Sergeant Rigby was injured, our supplies were running out, and the only heat we had was from the incubator for Dr. Barlow's sodding eggs. Turns out that someone else is in that very valley..."

"Alek." Ed marvels briefly at how much this all sounds like a story—although, he reflects, his life would make a damn good story too—a tragic one.

"Aye. _Alek_." Deryn nearly spits the name. "Him and two men. And the daftie comes prancing across the glacier, bearing _thermometers_, just in case any of us are injured. Tries to claim he lives in the mountains, but it's obviously a load of yackum—he's rubbish at lying. So we detain him. And his men come looking for him. In a _tank_."

"A what? A _tank_? In the _mountains_?" Why the hell would anyone use a _tank_ to get around, besides if they were actually military?

"Didn't make any sense to me either," Deryn says, wiping at her nose. Despite her best efforts, it has been running a little. "And they probably would've blown us all to blazes if I hadn't run out in front of them and put my knife to Alek's throat."

"You missed a good opportunity there," Ed says viciously.

Deryn just nods. "So they conceded. They'd used the last of their fuel, though, and they still needed to get to Moskva. We reached an agreement that we'd split the rations and they'd have use of the transportation we'd arranged once out of the mountains—they were more our hostages than anything, but basically we promised not to turn them over to anyone else. Still didn't know what they were running from—oh, aye, they were Cretan, I'd nearly forgotten. Didn't recognize the accent or the language, did you?"

Ed shakes his head. "I haven't heard it before," he admits. He hasn't been in the west before, where the Cretan border is. He knows a few basic things about their country: they're engaged in a border war with Amestris currently, they have a king, they don't use and distrust alchemy, they're almost as religious as the Ishvalans...

"Neither had I," Deryn says bitterly. "And now I've learned the whole sodding language—for _him_—anyway." Ed decides to take her anger as a good sign; it's much better than crying, he figures, and he's much better equipped to deal with an angry girl than a crying one. And it's how _he_ deals with tragedy, too. "D'you how the war started?"

Ed thinks back; he knows the tensions have been running high for years, but only recently did Creta go on the offensive. Both countries are at a standstill, he remembers reading. But he has no idea what caused this. "No," he admits.

Deryn make a noise that's halfway between a hum and a laugh at what Ed assumes is his ignorance. "Hey," he says sharply. "Not all of us are wise-asses."

Deryn only shrugs. "It's just—you don't _know_, and you don't _care_... I reckon I envy you that. But it was the crown prince's assassination that started it all."

This hint triggers something in Ed's memory, and details begin to trickle back to him. "Right—and wasn't the assassin Amestrian, and Creta blamed our government?"

"More or less, aye. They never actually caught whoever it was—poison. But the Cretans suspected someone, and although they hadn't any excuse, they used it to go to war." Deryn pauses. "They killed the prince's wife too," she says softly. "She wasn't royal—well, royal _enough_, and they all hated her." She rubs a hand across her eyes, pausing again. "The crown prince married her despite the king's wishes—he was his nephew, not his son—and the nobility resented him, too. He was far too peace-minded besides. His death was very _convenient_." She gives a crooked smile.

"Damn—you don't mean to say—the _Cretans_ killed him?" All of the newspapers had defended the accused Amestrians voraciously, but none of them had gone so far as to postulate _that_. "But how do you know that?" Even as Ed is saying the words, a possibility occurs to him. He bites his lip. "Wait—is that bastard...? Who _is_ he?"

Deryn puts her head down, suddenly unwilling to look at Ed. "The crown prince's son," she says into her knees, muffled, "but he wasn't his heir. They _treated_ him like a bastard because of his mum—the terms of their marriage said that their children couldn't inherit. But his da went and got the terms changed in Aeruga so that Alek was next in line, and the Cretans found out about it and went after him, too."

Ed whistles. "You were hooking up with the crown prince of Creta?" he says without thinking, and immediately flushes as Deryn lifts her head to glare at him.

"Aye, you could say that," she says, rather red herself, "but he's a barking sod, as we've established. To save his cowardly hide, he had to run to the Briggs Mountains, where only pure dead daft people go by choice, in the tank. Creta's tanks are very advanced to make up for their lack of alchemy," she adds. "And they invented automail, did you know that? I only got reminded a barking million times a day..." She scowls at the memory.

"Yeah," Ed says, smiling a little despite himself. He knows far more about automail than he would care to, thanks to Winry. And that's a bittersweet thought that he's reminded of again—_Winry_. Will he ever be able to look at her the same way? Will they even still be _friends_? "So did I."

"Aye. _Mechanics_," Deryn says in what Ed is fairly sure is genuine disgust. "He was a right sodding nuisance at first, stuck-up Cretan Clanker—I reckon he grew on me, though," she adds sadly. "Dr. Barlow guessed who he was first—they didn't tell us, though of course we knew they were barking important enough to have a tank—and then he started crying, 'cause it reminded him about his parents... and I don't know, I just... felt _sorry_ for him," she admits, making "sorry" sound like an exotic and disgusting disease.

Ed snorts—_crying_? What a wuss. Although, he has to admit, it seems to have worked pretty well—and he supposes he can sympathize about losing parents, even though the last time _he_ cried, he was eleven.

Deryn's eyes are on the ground again. "I started fancying him in the worst way, like the daft lassie I am... he left us in Moskva, and I went after him, talked him into coming back, when I was supposed to be off spying. Then Dr. Barlow decided she wanted to go to _Xing_, and we went the overseas route, and he... found out about me." Her voice is the barest whisper now, and Ed finds he's leaned within a few inches of her just to pick up what she's saying. "Finally took a sodding hint. B-but he said h-h-_hated_ me, and that I betrayed him, and he never wanted to talk to me again."

Her voice is shaking unsteadily now—something has obviously renewed her distress, although Ed isn't sure what exactly it is; after all, if this story had been his, he would have refused to tell anything at all—but she still manages a thin smile. "He got over th-that soon enough, a-a-and then we were on the way back in the ship's crow's-nest and trying to fix some rigging and got caught in a storm. He was anchored to me to keep us both down, and he got blown over and c-c-cracked his head, and I was afraid he w-w-would fall asleep, and he made me p-p-promise that we wouldn't keep secrets, so I k-k-kissed him." Deryn presses her eyes shut, her fists clenched, but the first tear slips down her cheek despite her best efforts.

Ed bites the inside of his cheek. This is just getting worse and worse. They made a promise not to keep secrets, and then he goes and does _this_ to her? Alek is now far past the territory of "asshole" and "bastard" and into depths of sliminess Ed doesn't even have words for.

"He—he didn't—I was common as dirt, and he was a prince, and I _knew_ it wouldn't work, but we kept on being friends. And then I was keeping an eye on a potentially hostile ship in the rigging, and I—I slipped—I _never_ slip—and I fell off onto the edge of the deck and tried to land on my feet and bollixed up my knee and fell down and hit my head and went overboard."

Ed sucks in a breath despite himself. "Could—could you swim?" Amestris, as a land-locked country, hardly has any sea to practice in. And he knows that plenty of goddamn _sailors_ in other countries' navies can't swim, either.

Deryn's cheeks hold a few more wet tracks now. "N-n-not with my knee and half stunned. I was drowning—I went unconscious and thought I'd never wake up again, but I came to and there I was in sick bay. The whole crew knew my secret now, but I wasn't barking dead—a-a-and they told me Alek had jumped in and kept me up—he was there the wh-whole time I was healing up—and then I w-w-was well enough to climb the ratlines again and he got a s-s-sodding medal for being daft and hitting his head in the crow's-nest and we went up there again—"

By this time Deryn's voice is so fogged that Ed can hardly make out the words. She swallows, no doubt trying to crush down the lump that must be crowding her throat, and speaks again with a visible effort. "He k-k-kissed me and told me he'd given up his claim to the Cretan throne and t-t-that we'd—we'd s-s-save each oth-other—"

Finally she succumbs and begins to cry in earnest, still silently. Ed stares at her with mounting panic. She got the story out all right, and he was perfectly fine with listening, even if it made him a little uncomfortable to hear something so personal—but, dammit, she's _crying_. How is he supposed to deal with _crying_? He doesn't even let _himself_ cry, goddammit—

He pauses a moment more, brain scrambling for a solution—why isn't there a nice, neat formula for this, a list of actions and equal-but-opposite reactions?—then hesitantly puts an arm around Deryn's trembling shoulders, unable to quite understand why he's doing it. It's no more than him resting his hand—his real one, his _human_ one—on the shoulderblade furthest from him, but it still feels uncomfortably intimate to him. Goddammit, what is it with him and girl problems?—but, Ed reminds himself, she _did_ hug him before; it's not like he's overstepping himself.

Deryn freezes for a moment, obviously as surprised as Ed is that he would do such a thing, and then leans in to him, letting her weight rest on Ed's arm and chest.

He stiffens at this unexpected reaction, his brain screaming nothing more coherent than _girl_— _heavy_— _warm_— _still_ crying, _dammit_—

Fumbling for words, Ed manages, "Goddamn fairy-tale ending, huh?"

Only a girl could manage to cry so brokenly and laugh at the same time. "Aye. Sh-sh-should've known—they never last. M-my fault—I sh-shouldn't've gone to Dr. Barlow, should've come with him to Rush Valley—" Her voice is cracking all over the place, jagged edges of pain. "H-h-he wanted to get more mechanical training while I was apprenticed to her—c-c-could've guessed he'd meet someone better than _me_—" She chokes a single sob, burying her face into Ed's shoulder, her voice giving for good.

Ed's muscles seize up again, but with an effort of will he overcomes them enough to blurt, "You really couldn't've guessed how much of a bastard he is—dammit, how _is_ someone better than you? You're— you're—" At last he realizes what he's saying and cuts himself off, cursing his brain's tendency to run on autopilot in stressful situations. This situation is damn awkward enough already without him blurting some half-formed and undoubtedly offensive "compliment."

All Deryn does, though, is nod gently against his jacket, apparently too overwhelmed to notice. Ed lets out a grateful breath, considering what to do next. He can't just let her cry on him, and if he talks he _knows_ he'll say something goddamn stupid, so he settles for letting his hand rub gentle circles on her back, just like his mother did to him when he was little.

It seems to work, for soon enough Deryn lifts her face from Ed's shoulder and pulls away, swiping at her face with her sleeve. "Barking spiders, I can't believe I said all that—" she begins to say shakily.

Ed stands quickly, glad to finally get away from the dank alley wall. But Deryn's foot is still gone, after all, and she still looks as if her world is too unsteady for her to stand, so he reaches down his left hand.

It's a sign of how distressed she is that she takes it instead of rolling her eyes at his attempt at chivalry. "It's okay," Ed tells her softly, not sure what exactly he's referring to at the moment.

But as she looks at him, her hand warm and her smile tear-stained and fragile but beginning to pull its shattered pieces back together, it feels like it will be.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><strong>MWAHAHA THAT WAS WAY MORE FUN THAN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN. (Breaking up Dalek, I mean. :D) I always like to match songs to books and events in them (as evidenced here), and as we all know, probably half of all songs ever are breakup songs. I was actually kind of disappointed with Leviathan canon for that reason, because I seriously try to match up every single song I hear to <em>some<em> part of Leviathan, and you really can't do that very well with breakup songs, since there _is_ no breakup. So part of me was just cackling, like, "HAHAHA I GET TO USE BREAKUP SONGS _HA_!" (Yes, I am certifiably insane. Also, very evil to my characters.)**

**On a related note, I do realize that Alek is terrifically out-of-character here, although he does have an additional reason for doing this that you shall learn at some indeterminate point in the future. Also, he's crying right now, as is Winry, poor sweetie, so that might make you feel better. But still. Jerkface. :P My justification for this is mainly, "This is an AU and therefore I can change anything I want with my Supreme Omnipotent Author Powers," so yeah. It had to happen, though... many things must be sacrificed for one's ship. XD I'm really not taking this seriously...**

**OH MY GOSH I'M REALLY GUILTY ABOUT DOING THIS TO DERYN, THOUGH. (I treat my characters like real people, or maybe like imaginary friends. Deal.) You _know_ you've pushed Deryn hard when she starts _crying_. I just wanna hug her until she feels better :( But hey, it looks like Ed's already done that... ;) He's so awkward with people. It's really pretty hilarious. It was hard to write him in the line between really sympathetic and deal-with-it... he's very complicated.**

**That little AU _Leviathan_ trip thingie is my baby and I love it very much. :3 It was pretty hard to come up with a lot of it, since Amestris doesn't have airships, let alone war whales, but I think I did okay. Also, as far as Creta goes: if Amestris is a mixture of Germany and Britain, then it would probably be something like France. So AU!Alek is AU!French. Yeah. He couldn't be AU!Austrian, though, since then he would probably be Amestrian anyway. Oh, and I think of Aeruga as Italy, so it would be where the pope lived, right? ;)**

**Very randomly, I just gotta say that I love Al, and I was very glad that I got to guest-star him as narrator. ;) (There will be a couple of other narrators besides Ed, too.) Besides, his in-universe shipping prowess is unmatched! It exists in canon, too, when he's just laughing at Ed and Winry... yes, he is fabulous.**

**And even more randomly, I just realized that I end every single section with an Edryn-y thing. Well then. I guess that says what _I'm_ focused on... XD**

**Wow, OK, that was a long A/N. But I felt obligated to explain myself... Anyway, hopefully someone will review this chapter, so I know you don't all hate me for being an evil author now... please?**


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